Cookies
by Crohn
Summary: Ryan and Esposito make cookies together as a "congratulations on your wedding" present for Castle and Beckett. Along the way, they discover their feelings for each other.


"Alright, we've got all the ingredients right?" Ryan asked. "Yeah, flour, butter, white and brown sugar, vanilla, eggs, baking soda, chocolate chips, all of it." Esposito replied, a frown on his face. "Bro, do we really have to bake them cookies, can't we just buy them something?" Esposito groaned. "Look I don't want to do this anymore than you do, but we went over this, we can't buy them anything, Castle's got all the money in the world, he'd be able to buy 50 of any thing we could possibly get them. Plus, if Beckett sees how much "effort" we put into making these, maybe she'll go easy on you about coming late to work yesterday." Ryan said optimistically. "Ugh… Oooh! I've got an idea: we make them a _card_ that says congratulations on your wedding! Yeah perfect!" Ryan stared at Esposito with an eyebrow raised. "Really? Dude let's just get this over with so we can go play video games." "Fine…" Esposito grumbled.

"Go get the stuff" Esposito said reading over the recipe printout. "What stuff?" "The uh… butter and sugars" Ryan took the new packet of butter out of the fridge, picked up the bags of white and brown sugar and brought them over to the table" "Okay so… first off, put this much butter in the bowl, and this much white sugar, oh and this much brown sugar" Esposito said, pointing at the lines on the measuring cup. Ryan put the sticks of butter in and tugged at the opening of the sugar bag until it tore open, causing a small hill of sugar to pour out of the bag. "Aww shit… sorry man," "C'mon dude, you can't even open a bag of sugar?!" Esposito said frowning at the sugar spilled on his table. "Hey, it's hard, it's all stuck together and stuff, you try opening it!" Ryan complained, handing him the second bag filled with brown sugar.

Esposito grabbed it from Ryan's hands and in one easy motion, opened the bag. He put the sugar down, raised his eyebrows and gave Ryan a look. "Okay whatever… _some_ people don't go to the gym everyday working out and flirting with girls…" "Okay first of all: these are real muscles," Esposito said flexing in front of him. Ryan turned his head, hiding his blushing face. One of the perks of being a gay guy was being able to see your crush's muscles in a not-weird way. He had always admired Esposito's strength, and his face was really cute. He had fallen for Esposito the moment he joined the precinct. Just the thought of him made him blush. Esposito continued "and second of all: … I'm gay, so flirting with girls would be pointless" There was a short moment of awkward silence. "That's- that's cool… Thanks for telling me man." Ryan said with a slight smile. "Yeah… I guess I never talk about that…" Esposito said shyly.

"Okay well anyways… we need to cream this all together" Ryan said, hoping to change the subject. "Uhh I'm not sure about what creaming is so… how about you do it," Esposito said chuckling. Ryan gave him a look and mumbled, "What _do_ you know…" He took the wooden spoon and slowly broke apart the butter. Creaming was _much_ harder than it looked, even for a cop as strong as him; Ryan still had a hard time doing it. He began mashing the sugars into the butter clumps, grunting and frowning at the bowl. "Ouch, man this hurts," Ryan said looking at his hands, now transformed into a light red color. "Bro, are you serious, a bowl of butter and sugar hurts you?! You're pathetic!" Esposito joked. He laughed quickly, afraid he had offended him. Ryan gave him a look, revealed his red hands and then chuckled a bit, "its hard okay, this butter is still pretty cold!" He slid the bowl and spoon over to Esposito and nodded his head, inviting him to try creaming it.

"I told you man, I don't know how this works!" "Just hold the spoon like this," Ryan said taking the spoon from him, "and just press the sugars down into the butter until they're all mixed together." He handed the spoon back to Esposito. Esposito tried to imitate what he saw Ryan do, and then tried rubbing the spoon against the butter. "Damn, this _is_ hard," Esposito groaned. "Told you." Ryan said laughing at Esposito. "Here, let me help you, Javi" Ryan put his hand on his partner's. Esposito felt a rush go through his body when Ryan touched him. His hand was warm… it was nice.

Ryan gripped the spoon on top of Esposito's hand and began moving the spoon in a special way. He removed his hand and thought in his head, " _Did I seriously just do that?!"_ Esposito blushed, thankfully the redness in his face would be less visible his tan skin, compared to Ryan's pale face. He looked away and avoided the awkwardness of the situation. " _Shit, why did I do that?!_ " Ryan thought. "Sorry…" He said softly. Esposito smiled and said, "No, its fine… it was nice" Ryan smiled back and pretended to read further into the recipe.

Esposito paused for a second, and then continued creaming the mixture in the bowl. After Esposito was done, he turned over to Ryan and broke the ice. "Alright, I'm all done" "Great, so now we add eggs and some other stuff." Ryan said, thankful they had started talking again. They put in all the other ingredients and then poured in a whole bag of chocolate chips. "Here, take this spoon, if we both mix, we'll get done faster." Esposito suggested.

Together, they mixed the chocolate chips into the large, tan lump of dough. Ryan looked up quickly and took a peek at Esposito's adorable face. He immediately looked back down, blushing. After mixing for a bit, he looked back up at him, and without realizing, he stopped mixing and just stared into Esposito's eyes. Esposito noticed, and looked up at him. He saw his blue eyes staring into his and smiled. "What's wrong?" he asked, ending the moment. "Oh nothing, I'm just… a little distracted is all." Ryan said looking down and continuing the mixing. "Okay…" Esposito said chuckling.

After a couple more minutes of mixing, Esposito announced that that the dough was ready. "Alright, now we need to form dough balls and put them on _those_ trays." Ryan said, gesturing at the long metal trays to the side. They dug their hands into the dough, scooping out small amounts for the tray. They brought their hands out of the bowl at the same moment, unintentionally brushing their fingers over the others. Ryan tried to hold back his smile, although the redness of his face gave it away. Esposito smiled. Ryan's smile was really cute, and he did have to admit that he was quite handsome too.

" _Maybe I should tell him my feelings, he does seem interested…"_ Ryan thought. He was scared of it though, confessions were one of the things he was terrible at. _"For years now, I've had a crush on him, maybe I should… This does seem like a good time… Yeah, I'll do it_ " Ryan thought smiling at the idea.

After they finished putting dough balls on the tray, Ryan put the oversized oven mitts on and picked up the trays, heading over to the oven. "Finally, we're done!" Esposito said sighing in relief and sitting down. "Yep! Castle and Beckett better be happy." Ryan said, leaning over to put the trays into the hot oven. Esposito checked him out, and blushed at how cute Ryan's butt was. Ryan got up, closed the oven, and set the timer.

Esposito blushed and walked over to the sink, about to wash his sticky, dough hands. Ryan turned around, once again trying to hide his red face. He stopped Esposito and said, "Javi… I want to tell you something… Something I've meant to tell you for a long time…" "What is it?..." Esposito said, half expecting Ryan to confess. "I've... I've always- I've always loved you!..." Ryan sputtered out the words and looked into Esposito's eyes, searching for some sort of answer. Esposito opened his mouth, but he was speechless. He smiled, moving forward and pressing his lips onto Ryan's. They parted and Esposito said "Me too." They smiled at each other and Ryan kissed him again. Esposito reached up and held Ryan's jaw, about to kiss him harder. Although he hadn't washed his hands, and he ended up smearing some dough onto his chin. They broke the kiss and Esposito chuckled. "…Sorry, I haven't washed my hands yet…" Ryan laughed and said "It's fine,"

Esposito ran his hands under water for a second, getting most of the dough off, and turned to Ryan, rubbed the dough off his chin, and continued to wash his hands. They moved over to they couch and sat down facing each other. They kissed, hugging each other's waist, "You have no idea how long I've wanted to do that." Ryan said, giggling. "I love you Ryan." "I love you too."


End file.
